UCONN: Coaches have stuck around for a long time with the Huskies

DAVID BORGES

Published 12:00 am, Saturday, June 16, 2012

STORRS -- By now, every Connecticut sports fan worth his salt knows the story about the Irishman from South Boston and the Italian guy from Philly who descended on Storrs a quarter-century ago and transformed the landscape of UConn sports.

But while Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma are easily the most famous, they are but two of numerous coaches in the UConn athletics program who have been at the school longer than most current Husky student-athletes have been alive.

No fewer than nine UConn coaches have piloted their respective programs for at least 20 seasons. Another two have been in Storrs for 15 years. Calhoun (25 seasons) and Auriemma (27) are among the longest-tenured head coaches in men's and women's basketball, respectively. But they both take a backseat to UConn soccer coach Len Tsantiris, who'll be entering his 32nd season at the helm in the fall.

"I think what it says, very simply, is the reason people stay here -- you look at the programs ... there's been a lot of success here," said Calhoun. "Obviously, women's basketball, men's basketball, track, soccer, etc., so it kind of all falls in.

"And there is something about UConn that people just don't want to rush away. There's something about UConn that people end up caring about. You've got a guy from Philly, a guy from Boston -- it's not just Connecticut people staying in Connecticut."

Glenn Marshall, however, is one of those people. He grew up in Glastonbury and played tennis at UConn before graduating in 1989. Three years later, he began his first season as head coach of the men's tennis team, and four years after that he took on head coaching duties of the women's team -- both of which he still coaches today.

"Maybe we've found a unique bunch of coaches who've had success and been treated well, in addition to the good accolades on the athletic front," Marshall said. "It's a nice time for all folks to raise a family, be part of a university that treats us well and wants us to succeed, and had given us the latitude to do that over the years. They've always been supportive of small sports, from Lew Perkins through Jeff Hathaway and now Warde Manuel, as well. We've been taken care of and made to feel like we're something special."

Marshall recalls when he first took over the women's program, "we were literally teaching strokes." Now, the Huskies' women's team is competitive nearly every season, earning four straight trips to the Big East tournament at one point. And with the possibility of being fully-funded within the next few years, the opportunity to continue to grow as a program is very real.

Goldberg has already done that with UConn swimming. Goldberg just completed his 24th season at the helm of both the men's and women's swimming programs. When he took over, the program wasn't funded very well, the pool was substandard and the teams were barely competitive in the ECAC and New England meets.

Now, both Husky programs are regularly competitive in the Big East championships each year, and the program has grown substantially. Goldberg had been the diving coach at Penn State for 15 years before arriving at Storrs.

"I expected to come here for five years and be gone," he admitted. "I can only speak for our sport, though it probably relates to a lot of others: you have 650 athletes here at UConn, and of course basketball and football get all the press, but the other 500, UConn just attracts some really great, high-quality, student-athlete kind of kids. They don't get a lot of press, they work really hard, they're just really good kids. It's just the culture of the kids we've had on the team, the coaches we've had on the staff, it's just made it a joy to be here. Twenty-five years have gone by in a heartbeat."

LIVING NEAR STORRS: GOOD AND BAD

Goldberg added that living in the Storrs area is certainly one of the attractions that's kept him here so long.

"The quality of life in this part of the state is pretty special," he said. "You've got to want to live in this environment. You have all the things around you that make it possible to have success at work. For those of us that are here, we probably like a little more rural environment, like the campus-type school, not the subway running outside the building type of thing."

That's one area where Goldberg and Stevens disagree. After arriving on campus following nine years at Northwestern University, Stevens said, "I felt like I needed a passport. I felt like I was in a different country. I don't view (the campus) as a positive. It's something we have to work hard to overcome, that it's a rural setting. 'Downtown Storrs' is an oxymoron. It's something we've had to overcome in recruiting."

But Stevens has certainly done that, having guided the Huskies field hockey team to the NCAA tournament in 15 of the last 16 seasons, including a trip to the national semifinals last November, where UConn lost to North Carolina in double overtime.

Stevens is also grateful for the support that the non-revenue sports have received from the athletics program over the years, something that undoubtedly has led so many coaches to stay so long.

"It's a real tribute to the program that was built here, that coaches are happy and given support and resources to be successful. It's something I've noticed over the years," she said. "It's been a (sports) program where leadership hasn't micromanaged every program ... Isn't that why someone would stay? Talking to colleagues around the country, some feel their leadership micromanages their program. That just doesn't happen here."

One thing the coaches of the smaller programs all agree about: the successes of the men's and women's basketball programs have absolutely helped their own.

"Whenever I see Geno, I thank him for helping us recruit," Stevens said. "That has been a really big part in recruiting, their success. Men's success is also helpful, but for high school girls -- they want to be a Husky, and it probably initially started because of basketball."

Stevens recalled a recruit who wore a UConn basketball sweatshirt that she'd got in the eighth grade while on a visit. She wound up choosing the Huskies.

"The success of women's basketball, in particular, has been a great help in our recruiting," Stevens said.

Added Goldberg: "It opens doors to kids from all parts of the country. When you call and say, 'I'm the coach of Connecticut,' it has name recognition. It definitely spills back over. Whether we get the kid or not is a different story, but at least it gets our foot in the door with some of the kids we really would like to get."

Goldberg is just the third UConn swimming coach in the past 70-plus years. John Squires coached the program for some 30 years, followed by Pete McDevitt for another 25. Goldberg may never catch Tsiantiris in tenure, but he figures he'll keep going for a while longer.

"It's a lifestyle," he said. "If you think of it as a job, you don't last very long, because the hours are horrendous, there's no publicity, the pay is kind of middle-of-the-road. It's a lifestyle, not a job."